For oil and gas exploration, information about subsurface formations that are penetrated by a wellbore is necessary. Measurements are essential to predicting production capacity and production lifetime of a subsurface formation. Collection and sampling of underground fluids contained in subterranean formations are well known. Moreover, testing of a formation may provide valuable information regarding the properties of the formation and/or the hydrocarbons associated therewith. In the petroleum exploration and recovery industries, for example, samples of formation fluids are collected and analyzed for various purposes, such as to determine the existence, composition and producibility of subterranean hydrocarbon fluid reservoirs. This aspect of the exploration and recovery process is crucial to develop exploitation strategies and impacts significant financial expenditures and savings.
A variety of packers are used in wellbores to isolate specific wellbore regions. A packer is delivered downhole on a tubing string, and a packer sealing element is expanded against the surrounding wellbore wall to isolate a region of the wellbore. The sealing layer of the sealing element is typically a uniformly-surface, cylindrical layer of rubber/elastomer. Often, two or more packers may be used to isolate several regions in a variety of well related applications, including production applications, service applications and testing applications.
Isolating a particular section of a wellbore typically involves deploying a dual packer system. Deploying a dual packer system is more involved than deploying a single packer since a greater likelihood that one packer may fail exists. Therefore, a single packer is desired which may be deployed in a formation to isolate a portion of the wellbore.